SCRIPTURE LESSON.

THE MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Howbeit, when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will show you things to come, he shall glorify me for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. John 16, 13-14.

For God hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. 4, 6.

The third person in the Trinity has been sent into this world just as definitely as the second person was sent into the world; and he has a mission just as separate and distinct and important as the mission of the Son of God; he has a mission to the church as well as to the world. Not only is he sent to convince the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, but he is sent to minister to the church.

The place given to the Holy Spirit in the heart and life of the most advanced Christian is far below that which he occupies in the word of God and which he should have in every believer's heart. To believe in Christ and not to believe in the Holy Spirit is to have a historical faith or a beginning, childhood faith, but not a saving, purifying, keeping faith. A church without the Holy Spirit is as great a delusion as a church without a Christ. There is as much reason why we should behave ourselves and walk softly before the Holy Spirit everywhere and all the time, as there ever was to obey Jesus Christ in the flesh. We must walk humbly with God the Spirit, as we would with God the Son. To obey the words of the Scripture and not obey the Spirit, is to become a formalist and finally a Pharisee. To grieve the Holy Spirit is as great a violation of God’s word as to steal or lie or swear. To try to deceive the Holy Spirit is as perilous as the sin for which Ananias and Sapphira fell down dead at the feet of Peter. To betray the Holy Spirit is a sin equal to the sin of Judas who betrayed the Son of God with many kisses. To reject the Holy Spirit, as worldly Christians are observed to do, is a crime equal to the Jews who rejected the Son of God in the flesh. Truth without the Spirit never saves, but always condemns. “Theology without the unction of the Holy Spirit is not only a dead letter, but a deadly poison.”

So strong is my faith in the ministry of the Spirit, that I really have no hope at all in the salvation of the world save by his ministry. Because there is a Holy Spirit who has been sent, and because of his vitalizing, enlightening and enduring power, I have great hope for the redemption of the world. The church does not understand the mission of the Spirit. The day of Pentecost was simply a pattern day. I believe that the ministry of the Spirit did not begin in glory to end in darkness, but it began feebly on the day of Pentecost and was intended to increase in power, as the membership increases in number, until this dispensation shall end gloriously in the redemption of the whole world. For Jesus said that “He, when he is come, will convince the world’’ — not a few, not a little portion, but “when he is come he will convince the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment.”

The atmosphere around this globe is one hundred and twenty-five miles high and it is necessary to the life of the animals, it is necessary for the growth of the plants; but it would be of no value to the plants nor to the animals if there was no sunlight radiating it, giving it life and pow r er. No animal could live and no plant could grow without the sunlight.

The redemption of Jesus Christ covers the whole world. More than one hundred and twenty-five miles high as a sea of salvation, but unless this redemption is applied by the Holy Spirit this world will swing on in moral darkness forever.

Let us look at the ministry of the Holy Spirit as taught by the Son of God.

1. He shall tell us who Jesus is. Jesus says: “When He is come He will testify of me.”

The disciples knew all the particulars about the life of Jesus. They were conversant with His special power, His life, His grace and His long suffering. They saw the manifestations of His power in the miracles which He performed. And yet the very night that these words were spoken, these very disciples that knew all about Jesus Christ, forsook him and fled, and Peter went off denying that he knew anything about this Son of God.

But when the Spirit came at Pentecost and testified of Jesus, then these disciples began to testify with tremendous power before all the people.

The sufferings of the Son of God are ineffectual for the redemption of the world, until the Holy Spirit bears testimony to Jesus and reveals Him to our own hearts, and then we through the Spirit bear witness to the things of Christ. The atonement of Jesus Christ was real, the redemption was real years before I knew anything about it, before I received it. I had heard of the sufferings of the Son of God and of the Blood of Jesus Christ a thousand times before I received the Lord, but when in answer to my mother’s prayers the Holy Spirit convinced me of sin and then brought the things of Jesus to me, and I saw my sins and I saw Christ suffering for my sins, I saw His atonement and His redemption, it gave me joy and peace and glory so that I have never forgotten that day.

The redemption of Jesus Christ takes in all the world, and yet the world seems to be perfectly indifferent and careless concerning the atonement that the Son of God has made. The reason of that is we have forgotten the ministry of the Spirit. We have forgotten that he is to come upon us and through us bear witness for the glorified Son of God, at the right hand of power.

2. The Holy Spirit is the official successor of Jesus Christ. I have no sympathy in diminishing the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I believe that God has sent Him forth to execute and administer on the estate of Jesus Christ. I believe Jesus purchased the world for God and the Holy Spirit is sent to administer on this estate until the world is redeemed. The Holy Spirit has not come as a distinct person to abide in the preachers in a body, not in the church as a body but in the body of each preacher and each member. The church needs to wake up to this fact that God has sent the third person of the Trinity to be an abiding guest in every member of the church.

If the Lord in person should be with you in the home; if He should walk arm and arm with you to your business and in your store, you would have a very gentle and mild spirit. You would walk gently and very humbly with the Lord. If you were in his presence you would live without trembling, doubting or distrust; you would feel that you were perfectly safe; but the Lord has sent the Holy Spirit to be the official successor to himself and he says distinctly to us: “It is better for you that I go away and the Spirit come to you.” Yet how few seem to be conscious and to realize that we have the official successor of the Son of God with us, not only with us, but abiding in us always. Do we see it as we ought to see it? Are we moved by it as we ought to be moved by it? If we were we would leave behind us our woes, our discouragements, our bitter complaints, and rejoicing one with the other we would walk in the enduement of power and many a worldly man would be under conviction and believe on the Son of God.

3. The Holy Spirit is the Revealer of Jesus Christ. He shall take the things of mine and reveal them unto you. Without the Spirit of God coming upon us, we will not be able to receive the things of Jesus. The only interpreter of the Holy Scriptures is the Holy Spirit, and unless you have Him to be your interpreter you will not be able to enter into the word of God. You do not understand the spirit of the Scripture because you have Hodge, or Clarke, or Whedon, or any human authority. It is a good thing to have the works of man, but they are not the key that opens the scriptures to your heart. The Spirit of God is the only key and if you have a wrong key it is about as bad as though you have no key at all. In fact, it is sometimes worse to have a wrong key because you putter around, wasting much time trying to do something that you cannot do. You will not be able to unlock the Word with a wrong key. The Holy Spirit is the one who explains the Word of God. Without him you will be like the blind Sodomites who stumbled around trying to find the door of the house of Lot and could not find it. We need the enlightenment of the Spirit to understand the Word; we need to have this radiance of God in us, in order to see the things that are around us as they really are.

Suppose this was an art room. It is not; but draw on your imagination and suppose it was an art room, filled with the finest paintings in the world. Suppose over here was the painting of “The Storm,” over here of “Job's Comforters,” over there “The Last Hours of Mozart,” or “The Spring,” or “The Resurrection.” If there was no light you might just as well not have them; they would be of no value to you.

In order to see the things of Jesus Christ there must be heavenly light thrown upon you and upon them. “He shall take of the things of mine and show them unto you.” They are about you, but you cannot see them. The Holy Spirit would not have been sent if you could see them yourself. He illuminates the things of Christ just as the sun on a fair day illuminates this earth. The sun does not make the mountain, the rock or sea. It simply brings them out. They are just as deep or broad or high in the midnight hour as they are in the noon time. One midnight hour on the mountain top I looked upon the valley beneath but could see nothing save a gray landscape lined with a few silver streams, but in the early morning I was enraptured with a variety of fields with herds and flocks, with birds and fowl of every wing, with homes and stores and villages and the spires of a great city. What a wonderful thing the sun did to this valley. It illuminated the valley, irradiating the trees, shedding light upon the trembling dew, on every twig and shrub, until the bushes in the early morning seemed like the presence of God. The Holy Spirit is to do that way with the things of Jesus to our hearts and minds. He takes the providences of Jesus Christ and reveals them unto us and explains them so that we can see them and know them.

4. The Holy Spirit makes the things of Jesus fresh and living realities. He shall take the things of Jesus and make them fresh and real. We need to have the sufferings of the Son of God and His victories made a fresh and present reality to everyone of us. With the Spirit one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. We hear men talk about the life and the sufferings of Christ and all that, as of something that happened two thousand years ago. It is the history of Christ centuries ago and we get the impression that it belongs to the distant past. The Holy Spirit makes the redemption of Jesus Christ a present, a fresh, a divine reality, just as much so as if it had occurred yesterday, or today, for a thousand years with Him are as one day.

5. He shall glorify Jesus. “He shall glorify me” There are two ways in which the Son of God is glorified. The Father glorifies him in Heaven and the Spirit glorifies him on earth. The Holy Spirit is not sent to glorify Jesus in heaven. He is sent to glorify Jesus on the earth, when he is come. “He shall glorify me.” The Son glorified the Father on the earth. He said, “I have glorified Thee on the earth.” When about to leave, Philip said, “Show us the Father and it sufficeth us.” Jesus said: “Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me, Philip. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”

To glorify is to manifest, to bring out the hidden virtues and worth and merits of a person — to reveal them so that they will be known where they are unknown. The Father glorified the Son when He received Him back into Heaven and gave Him the glory that He had with Him before the world was. The Father glorified the Son when He put all things into his possession, when he gave the authority over all things in heaven and earth. The Spirit takes the things of this glorified Son of God in heaven and brings them to us on earth and reveals them to us and in us that others may see them. When the Spirit comes to us and is enthroned in our hearts as Jesus is enthroned in heaven, then the things of the enthroned Jesus are imparted to us. He takes the peace that Jesus has and the purity that Jesus has, His love, His humility, His righteousness, His wisdom, His sanctification and His redemption and imparts them to us. Why? That Jesus may be glorified on the earth, through us and in us and by us. He shall glorify me on the earth.

When the Holy Spirit reveals the character of Jesus, we begin to see how much crookedness there is in ourselves, the failures, and shortcomings in our living and our need of transformation. For three years the disciples had the presence of Jesus, but did not have his likeness or characteristics. He was humble, they were proud. He was unselfish, and they were selfish. He believed God, they were frequently unbelieving. He was peaceable, they had strife and contention with one another. They wanted his presence, but cherished their own dispositions and characters, but the Comforter came to them at Pentecost, and imparted to them the characteristics of Jesus, and the Scribes and High Priests saw that fact at once.

What then arc the characteristics of Jesus that we need and may have them imparted to us?

1. The first of these is Purity. Jesus is the only one of unstained heart and of pure lips and life; “Which of you accuses me of sin?” Of all the streams of life He was the pure, transparent, pellucid one, as a spring from the hills of heaven in which there was nothing turbid or foul. Oh, blessed work of the Holy Spirit, producing in us this characteristic of Jesus, purifying our hearts by faith. This is the first great work of the Comforter when he comes in to abide.

2. The next feature is that of love. Jesus introduced love into the world. We had known something about love, yet it was narrow, limited and deflected, but He straightened out the lines, took up the boundaries and made it universal. So that His life was a perfect love life. And now the Comforter is to produce and carry out in us that same love-life that Jesus may be glorified in us, that we may love intensely, constantly, not in word or tongue, but in deed and reality.

3. Another feature of Jesus is forgiveness. This is something like love, but is distinct and separate. Forgiveness was hardly known in the ancient world. The highest degree of forgiveness to which Plato thought it possible to reach was to blot from his mind the very conception and image of his enemy, and that was not forgiveness at all, but only a secret and proud revenge. The old Roman said that "No one has ever done me so much good, and no one has ever done me so much evil that I have not repaid him with interest.” But Jesus brought forgiveness out of the shadows and made it one of the chief graces of his kingdom. The Jews insulted him, when they had no right to do so. They wronged him and did not stop there. They injured him, and did not repair the injury. They sinned against him, and did not repent. They were cursing and hating, tormenting and abusing, thrusting and pushing at him and killing him, and rejoicing that now he would soon die and be damned. What was Jesus doing — railing back at them? No, no. Turning his face from them and becoming utterly indifferent to their welfare? Hear him say, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And now you see what real, thorough forgiveness is, and this is what the Comforter comes to produce in us, so that forgiveness in us towards others would be like God’s forgiveness towards us.

4. Another feature of Jesus is humility. This is a very gracious element of character. It is not self humiliation, which is often ostentatious and full of vulgar vanity and self seeking. It is not diffidence, which is a mere distrust of our own powers. It is not timidity, which is a fear lest our effort should be censured. It is not modesty, which is an unwillingness to put ourselves forward. But humility consists of a willingness to be rated low, to waive our rights and take a lower place than is our due, and do all we can whether praised or blamed. This is a rich valley, the descent into it is steep and rugged, but oh it is beautiful, fertile and fruitful, when once we get there. There is where Jesus always lived. He might have said to his disciples, "Learn of me, because I am the most advanced thinker of the race. I have performed more miracles than any other man. I have shown my supernatural power in a thousand ways/' but the reason he gave was that he was "Meek and Lowly in Heart.” He never listened for the applause. He never had a mean, miserable itching way down in his heart for the hero's praise. This supreme person of history was a friend of publicans and sinners. Having all power in heaven and earth, He served his disciples as a servant. "He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” He virtually said: "Let it cost me what it will, I will do anything. I’ll die that God's will may be done.” and thus His chief virtue was humility, and humility is well nigh the whole substance of Christianity.

The Comforter is come to give us that same humility; this is our great need. There seems to be so much pride, selfishness and exaggeration abroad that it looks as if we were seeking the praise of men, and not of God.

There seems so much patronage in our smiles and condescension in our approvals; so much exaggeration for our own glorification, in our recitals of victories, and so much scrambling for leadership in the aggressive movements of the church, that it looks as if we had lost the grace of humility.

The Holy Spirit is sent to impart unto us the Christ life, so that the life we now live will be Christ living in us, the hope of glory. “He shall glorify me.”

For this purpose God hath shined in our hearts to make known through us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and our whole purpose is that the life of Jesus shall be made manifest not in heaven after a while, but here and now in our mortal flesh. Thus we are living epistles read and known of all men. Living revelations, movable samples of the divine nature. This is what Paul means in II Cor. 3, 18: “We all with open face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord.” (That is, the character of the Lord, for the glory of all beings is their character) “reflecting the character of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, from character to character, even as by the Lord the Spirit.”

The work of the Spirit is not merely to save Christians in heaven when they die, but to reveal Christ to the world in the Christians while they are living, so that men shall see Him and come to Him, know Him and be saved by Him when they see Him in Christians.

Thus Paul enforces this truth in I Cor. 1, 19: “Know ye not that your tody is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you which ye have of God, and ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God’s.” Practice the presence of Jesus, so that if any man sees you he will not see a sanctified man merely, or a holiness man, but he will see Christ in you and thus Christ will be glorified in you.

When the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was exhorting the brethren to brace up the feeble knees, to strengthen the weak hands, to make level paths for their feet that the lame be not turned away, he says: “Follow peace with all men” practice peace as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men “and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.”

Follow holiness, practice holiness. Now, what are the practical elements of holiness, what are the cardinal virtues? Are they not love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control? Practice these and men will see the Lord in you here and now. If you do not, no man shall see the Lord and Christianity would die out in one generation. Get a pure heart and you shall see the Lord. Practice holiness, not to get to heaven, to see the Lord, but that other people may see the Lord in you, and Jesus will be glorified in you.

The spiritual life with its gifts and fruit is the great life. The physical life is the shadow. The soul life is the reality. The spiritual world is the great world. All the past generations of saints are in the spiritual world. That is the great world. The physical world is the temporal; it is the beginning, then that which is spiritual. Let us press up out of the earthy into the spiritual, that we may see and realize the greatness of our privilege and destiny.

A blind mole may make a long path under the earth with his spades and may say, “I do not know any world but this. I do not know any other life but this. I have dug and dug and this is the only world I have seen and believe in. There is no other world.” But the eagle on the mountain top does not pull out his feathers or pluck out his eyes. He does not not ask for the spades of the mole that he may dig down there in the ground. He says, “Stay under the ground and dig away if you will; I like this mountain crag; I like the air that comes from these mountain tops; I like the sun that shines in the blue sky. You may dig down there if you want to, but I prefer this life; I prefer this air.” And he stays there in his great world on the mountain top.

Materialists may say, “this physical life is all I want. It suits me; I do not believe in the spiritual world. I do not believe in the things that I cannot hear and see and touch.” But when the Sun of Righteousness shines in a believer's soul, when he gets breezes fresh from the Paradise of God, when he gets into communion with saints and the spirits of just men made perfect, he says, “How delighted I am with this atmosphere. This is the great world, and I am content to live here and stay here forever.”

It seems to me that physical life is a kind of seed life. It is a kind of bulb life. It is carried on under the ground. And the great spiritual life which God has given us is in the life above the soil.

Suppose the bulb of a tuberose in your garden in the spring of the year should say: “Here I am, this is a comfortable place; it is warm here. I am afraid to go up into the air, I am afraid the frosts will bite me, the cold will chill me. I am afraid that someone will trample upon me, someone will bruise me and crush me if I come up. I am afraid the sun will wither my blades of beauty; I will just hide my life, I will cover myself up and hide all my beauty here.” What would the gardener say? He would say, “See that bulb there; I thought it was going to be a good bulb; I thought I was going to have a nice flower from it, and a beautiful sweet aroma. Take the bulb up and throw it away; it is dying, it is dead.”

Here we are, beginning a wonderful, and an eternal existence; here we are planted in this soil a little while, and the eternal God knows the great beauty we can have, and the great glory that will come to us if we will push up. But if we say, “I am afraid to be spiritual, I am afraid to give up all to my gardener, I am afraid that the little troubles, the little sorrows, and the difficulties that will come upon me will injure me, if I yield myself unto my God entirely, I am afraid the frost will bite me or the hot winds will curl me up, I will cover myself up; I will hide here,” God will say, “I thought that was a good bulb, I thought I was going to have a sweet flower; cast the bulb out; it has brought me no flower; it has brought me no beauty; it has brought me no sweetness; it has brought me no fruit. Cast it out; it has been a worthless plant.”

Push up, according to God’s plan. Let us rise into the spiritual; let us take hold personally of the blessed Holy Spirit. Let us rise above these temporal things, and get the dews from heaven and the sunlight of God on leaf and flower. And it will be only a little while until the Lord God will look down from heaven and say to his gardener: 'This is a

beautiful plant; it has a beautiful flower; this plant has bloomed long enough in that little world; dig it up with an angel’s spade, and transplant it into my heavenly kingdom by the river of Life that flows by the throne of God.” And the angel will transplant us into the heavenly world where we will see the glory of God, and enjoy the Lord and his saints forever, amen.